Chapter 695: Kitsuna Solenne [Bonus - ]

Chapter 695: Kitsuna Solenne [Bonus Chapter]

SNAP!

Kara hooked her one arm under Rika’s armpit and hoisted her onto her hip like a sack of flour and the Disguise Artifact ring on her finger caught the light as her teleportation mana flared in a blinding razor-sharp burst.

VUUUUUUUUUUUUUM... FLASH!

A column of emerald-and-silver light detonated in the center of the aisle, collapsing inward in a fraction of a second.

The vault went dead silent, the air was still warm and the heat runes hummed quietly.

Kara White, Rika, and twelve of the most valuable beast eggs in the consortium’s history... had completely vanished into thin air.

Selvane stood alone in the center of the room, staring blankly at the empty stone pedestals.

She blinked once then twice as if she couldn’t believe it.

"Huh...?"

A tiny, squeaking syllable escaped her slack jaw.

Her elder daughter stumbled forward, holding a trembling clipboard, her voice shaking violently.

"M-Mother... she... she took eleven masterwork lots... and the petrified abyssal core... that’s... that’s eighty percent of tonight’s auction headliners..."

The reality crashed down upon Selvane with the concussive force of an exploding boiler.

"THAT RUTHLESS, SCHEMING, BORDERLINE-BANDIT TERROR OF A WOMAN!"

Selvane shrieked at the top of her lungs, grabbing both sides of her head and violently pulling her hair as her boots stomped against the basalt floor.

"SHE PLANNED THIS FROM THE START! SHE PRETENDED TO BE POLITE! SHE PRETENDED TO CARE ABOUT MY LETTER! AND THEN SHE HAD HER SUMMON PLAY JUGGLING ACTS WITH MY INVENTORY AND STUCK THE COUNCIL WITH THE BILL!"

She panted heavily with her chest heaving and her gray eyes burning with pure mortified outrage.

’Number Five was right!’ Selvane wept internally, glaring at the empty ceiling. ’Number Five wasn’t exaggerating at all! Kara White is a lawless MENACE!’

Upstairs, Oren heard the scream through three floors of basalt, looked at the ceiling, and slouched a little deeper.

Mother’s tantrums ran on a schedule but this one was early.

...

High above the marble spires of Central City.

FLASH!

The spatial displacement cleared with a soft, rushing sigh of high-altitude wind.

Kara hovered gracefully fifty feet above the rooftops, wind curling around her boots to hold her aloft with her three-piece suit billowing against the crisp afternoon breeze and her violet eyes looking down at the sprawling metropolitan panorama below.

Resting comfortably against her hip, held securely in one arm, was Rika, who was giggling into her hand while the fledgling phoenix chirped happily from her shoulder.

"Ah..." Kara sighed, letting out a long, relaxed breath that tasted of cool mountain air. "Well. That’s finally taken care of."

Honestly, she would have preferred to conduct the transaction through the standard administrative channels... swipe her card, let the clerks process the ledgers, and walk out with formal receipts.

’But given the fact that not a single member of the World Council had the decency to show their face in the Directorate today...’ Silas mused with cold satisfaction, ’...why in the world should I waste my own capital?’

The Council owed him an astronomical debt for Khemet.

Shoving an invoice onto their desk about some eggs was barely scratching the surface of what they needed to give him... Silas would let the fossilized magistrates choke on the bill when they returned from their retreats.

As for Selvane...

’She’s an interesting woman,’ Silas thought with a faint smirk. ’Entertaining, sharp, and totally unhinged with her twelve baby daddies but that’s all she is... a contact. I’m not here to play best friends with the local receptionists.’

He reached into his pocket, patting the sealed violet letter resting in his inventory.

’I’ll deliver her letter to Musvi the next time I dive beneath five miles of granite but that’s only after I track down Number Five or force the Council back to the negotiating table.’

Kara shifted her weight, allowing gravity to gently pull them downward.

With a soft whisper of wind mana, her boots touched down lightly upon the polished gray cobblestones of an expansive public plaza.

’Now then...’ Silas thought, smoothing the lapels of Kara’s coat as he set Rika down on her feet. ’I should probably head back to the Celestial Reach Hotel. Aeliana and Morwenna ought to be finishing up their supply run soon, and we still need to review the forge manifests before—’

Kara paused.

Her boots stopped mid-stride near the edge of the pedestrian boulevard.

In the center of the quiet, sunlit square, standing beside a dried marble fountain, was a figure that instantly snagged Silas’s attention.

It was a woman.

She was a fox beastkin, slender and reasonably tall, with a pair of delicate pointed vulpine ears poking through a wild, unkempt mane of tangled silver hair that looked as though it hadn’t met a comb in three weeks.

Trailing behind her, twitching with exhausted nervous tension, were nine magnificent twirling silver tails.

Yet, despite her striking mythical heritage, her current condition was utterly miserable.

Her tailored artificer’s coat of brown leather was frayed at the cuffs, stained with streaks of dark machine oil, soot, and dried alchemical flux.

Her pale face had a smudge of charcoal across the bridge of her small nose, and her heavy work boots were scuffed and worn down to the welt.

In her trembling calloused hands, she was holding up a large, handmade wooden signboard.

The sign was visibly crooked, hastily nailed to a splintered broom handle, but someone had spent immense effort painting the letters in bright eye-catching luminescent lacquer.

[VISIT SOLENNE’S WORKSHOP!]

Custom Magi-Tech Artificing • Machinery • Clockwork Arrays • Automated Golem Repairs • Blueprints Realized!

[ALL COMMISSIONS ACCEPTED — NO JOB TOO COMPLEX!]

(Reasonable rates! Will work for high-grade mana scrap or warm bread!)

The last line was scrawled at the bottom in tiny desperate letters that had clearly been added that morning.

A few well-dressed merchants and armored mercenaries walked past her, barely sparing a glance for the crooked sign.

One noble scion scoffed, waving his silk sleeve to brush off the smell of machine grease, causing the silver-haired beastkin to shrink back slightly with her nine tails drooping toward the dusty cobblestones in quiet defeated sorrow.

Kara stood twenty paces away, observing the scene through her black bangs.

Within the disguise, Silas’s eyes softened with a quiet undeniable pang of pity.

’A nine-tailed fox beastkin artificer... waving a broom handle in a public square?’ Silas mused, his fingers lightly tapping against his hip.

It was a pathetic sight, but beneath the soot and the desperate sign, Silas’s Gold Core could sense the subtle sharp hum of mana radiating from her calloused fingers.

She wasn’t a beggar... She was an artisan who had clearly been crushed by the ruthless commercial monopolies of the upper tier.

’Aeliana and Morwenna are grown women,’ Silas reasoned with a faint, amused smile. ’They have the credit cards, they probably have a map, and they can handle a few crates of stone and honestly... I don’t really have anything better to do for the next hour.’

Kara turned her head toward Rika, who was looking up at the drooping silver tails with curious green eyes.

"Come on, Rika," Kara smiled gently, stepping off the curb and heading straight toward the crooked wooden sign. "Let’s go see what this inventor can actually build."

The dry autumn breeze whistled through the marble plaza, kicking up thin swirls of pale dust around the base of the dried fountain.

For nearly three hours, Solenne had stood upon the cold cobblestones with her calloused fingers cramping around the splintered pine shaft of her handmade sign.

Her stomach had long since passed the point of sharp aching hunger and settled into a dull hollow numbness.

Every passing carriage, every silk-robed merchant casting a sneering glance at her oil-stained coat, every haughty laugh from a visiting mercenary company felt like another tiny chip taken out of her crumbling pride.

Her nine silver tails, usually radiant and shimmering with pristine ancestral vitality, drooped heavily against the back of her worn work boots.

Their tips dragged in the grime, tangled with stray wood shavings and specks of gray soot.

’Just one,’ she had pleaded silently, staring at the polished boots of passing nobles. ’Just one commission... A broken kinetic compass... A stripped gear on an arcane automaton... A dull runic chisel... Anything... Just enough Spirit Credits to pay the landlord’s mana-vent surcharge before they padlock the workshop doors tonight...’

Then, the shadows across the plaza shifted.

Two figures separated from the sparse crowd near the boulevard, stepping off the raised stone curb and walking deliberately in her direction.

Solenne’s delicate pointed vulpine ears twitched violently as the fine silver fur along their tips stood on end, parsing the sound of approaching footsteps.

These weren’t the hurried dismissive strides of passing pedestrians... They were heading straight toward her.

She lifted her weary dirt-smudged face with her golden eyes widening.

Approaching her was a woman clad in an immaculate tailored three-piece suit that practically screamed untouchable high-society wealth.

The cut was razor-sharp, embroidered with subtle silver filigree along the lapels, and her black bangs swayed softly in the breeze, framing features so poised and noble they belonged in a portrait gallery.

Beside her walked a petite and remarkably striking dark-haired girl wrapped in a heavy forest-green traveling cloak, clutching a tiny golden-feathered bird that blinked curiously at the street.

As their eyes met, the black-haired noblewoman’s lips curved into a warm gentle smile.

Solenne felt a jolt like live lightning strike straight through her spine.

’A pinned left sleeve,’ some traitor corner of her brain noted, entirely without permission. ’What is that... does she need a second ha– maybe a... no. Focus. Customer.’

Her golden eyes ignited with a brilliant light as the dull exhaustion in her pupils instantly swallowed by hope.

CLATTER!

In her flustered haste, Solenne completely forgot her grip.

The splintered wooden sign slipped from her fingers, clattering uselessly against the gray cobblestones but she didn’t even notice.

Her hands flew down to the sides of her frayed leather trousers, hastily wiping away invisible grease stains as she scrambled to piece together the most polite and welcoming smile her trembling lips could muster.

"A-Ah..." Solenne breathed, her voice cracking slightly before she quickly cleared her parched throat. "Greetings! Welcome! I mean... hello!"

Kara stopped three paces before the beastkin, tilting her head with an amused easy grace.

Her violet eyes swept over the crooked sign on the ground, then back up to the trembling silver ears.

"I saw your sign," Kara said smoothly, her melodious, feminine cadence carrying an effortless authority that washed over the quiet plaza. "I found myself rather intrigued by your claims... Custom magi-tech artificing, clockwork arrays, and blueprints? That is quite a bold repertoire for an independent artisan."

Kara paused, placing a slender manicured hand over her chest while offering a slight incline of her head.

"I am Kara White... Known to the high registry as Lord Vespera, Lord of Blessed Land and this is my companion, Rika."

The breath slammed entirely out of Solenne’s lungs as the world seemed to tilt on its axis.

The bustling noise of the distant tramlines and pedestrian avenues melted into a roaring high-frequency ringing in her ears.

’Lord... Vespera?!’

Solenne’s jaw slackened, her golden eyes bulging until they nearly escaped her skull.

Even buried in the dingy soot-choked back alleys of the industrial fringe, you would have to be deaf, blind, and buried beneath six feet of lead not to know that name!

The Lord Of Blessed Land... that was the only feat one needed to mention, her other achievements were legendary as well.

...And she was standing right here. In an ordinary public square, talking to a soot-streaked mechanic holding a broom handle.

SWISH-SWISH-SWISH!

The sudden catastrophic rush of adrenaline surging through Solenne’s pathways bypassed her conscious control.

Her nine magnificent silver tails, which had been dragging miserably in the dirt a second ago, snapped upward.

They fanned out behind her in a glorious shimmering halo, twitching and twirling in wild chaotic spirals of pure nervous excitement!

"L-L-Lord Vespera?!" Solenne squeaked, stumbling backward half a step before bowing so low her forehead nearly touched her knees. "The Lord of Blessed Land?! H-Forgive me! Greetings, Great Sovereign! I am... I mean, my name is Kitsuna Solenne! Independent master artificer, clockwork mechanic, and guild-certified arcane machinist!"

She popped back up like an overtightened spring, but the moment she met Kara’s calm violet eyes, her gaze flicked downward toward her own attire.

A violent blush detonated across Solenne’s face, burning straight through the charcoal smudge on her nose and painting the tips of her silver ears a bright luminous crimson.

Her coat was frayed and soaked in dark machine lubricant.

Her cuffs were scorched by alchemical acid, her knuckles were scarred and blackened with carbon dust and worse... standing this close to an immaculate silk-clad noble who smelled faintly of pristine mountain pine and fresh roses, Solenne became acutely aware of the pungent odor of sour brass polish and sweat radiating from her own clothes.